Page 29 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

I lurched up to take his mouth in mine. His fingers grabbed my head and held me tight to him for the kiss. His legs wrapped around my back as if he didn’t want to let me go. The feeling was completely mutual. This man had breezed into town and bewitched me out of the clear blue sky.

I hadn’t been expecting him. I wasn’t, in fact, ready for anything like him. But here he was, and something inside of me was begging me to hold on tight with both hands.

“Want you inside me,” he mumbled without stopping the kiss. “Need it. Need you. Please.”

I kissed him for a few beats longer, enjoying the soft sweet taste of his mouth.

But I finally pulled away and leaned over to grab a condom and lube from my bedside table.

“Do you want to top me?” I asked, hoping like hell he’d say no.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to bottom for him—I did.

I wanted to do everything with him. But right now, I wanted to bury myself so deep inside of him, I ached with it.

“Not this time. Is that okay?” he asked. Sweetest man ever.

I heaved a silent sigh of relief and nodded. “More than.” I noticed a crinkle of worry between his eyes. “Hey.” I drew my thumb along the crease. “What’s going on?”

He swallowed and opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

Then he tried again. “This isn’t… this isn’t a casual hookup for me, and I just…

” He turned away from me and blew out a nervous breath.

“I guess I just wanted you to know that. I don’t…

have sex often. I mean, I… sometimes have people blow me or whatever.

Like, casually… Ugh .” He groaned and closed his eyes, shooting a hand into his hair in frustration. “This is so embarrassing.”

I gently removed his hand from his hair and placed it on my chest. “You can tell me anything.”

His face flamed deep red. “Never mind.”

I shook my head. “No. Tell me what you’re thinking or this doesn’t go any further. If you can’t trust me with your thoughts, you probably shouldn’t trust me inside your body.”

Why did I sound like an after-school special?

I tried to soften the bossy-father tone.

“Please, Finn. I want to know what you’re thinking and feeling.

And just so you know, this isn’t casual for me.

It hasn’t been from the very beginning. I can’t see how anything between us could be more than temporary, but it definitely doesn’t feel casual to me. ”

The tension seemed to bleed out of him, and he smiled weakly up at me. “That’s how I feel, too. Exactly. I just didn’t want you to think…”

“That I was one of a million people you let into your bed. Into your body.”

He bit his bottom lip and nodded. “I don’t trust people easily.”

It made sense. Anyone lucky enough to get Finn Heller into bed might be tempted to turn it into an opportunity, especially if it was a onetime thing.

“I hope you know you can trust me,” I said as sincerely as I could.

He flapped his hand in the air between us. “Pfft. If there’s anyone who’s definitely not going to talk to a reporter about me, it’s you. I’m not worried about that.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

Finn met my eyes, and I suddenly knew the answer to my question. He was afraid of rejection. He was scared I was going to walk away. Again. The realization and the vulnerability in his eyes made my throat tighten.

“I’m here. I’m not leaving. You’re not leaving. I promise.” My words were thick and rough. “I promise.”

“You said last time?—”

I cut him off because I couldn’t stand to hear it. “I… I got a call out, and then… things got crazy. And my head… I second-guessed myself, Finn. I…”

“Before that. You left. After I asked you about LA.”

The memory of that conversation set my teeth on edge. “I thought you’d had that house party. I told you.”

“You could have asked me about it.”

True, but that would have required a level of maturity I hadn’t had after he’d sucked me into a mind-melting orgasm. “You said you’d hooked up with that smarmy sidekick of yours.”

Finn’s face relaxed into a smirk. “I lied.”

“Thank Christ,” I said in a whoosh of breath before I could stop myself.

His grin turned even more smug. “I don’t mind a jealous sheriff. It’s kinda nice, actually.”

I scowled at him. “It’s not nice for me. I felt sick when I thought of you with that poser.”

He laughed. “Poser? The eighties called, they want their sick burns back.”

Finn’s grin was irresistible. I leaned in to nip at it. “I was born in the eighties, punk.”

“Old man alert,” he said on a laugh. I kissed him some more until we were back to panting and humping against each other.

His body was perfect, all smooth muscles and unblemished skin.

Unblemished skin . I blinked. “Where are your tattoos?”

He furrowed his brow. “What tattoos? Oh, my arms? Those are temporary ones for the film. They’ll put a new set on tomorrow.”

I stared at his bare arms, trying to reconcile the concept of temporary tattoos to the ink that had made its home on his skin all week. “Wow, that’s… that’s incredible. I thought they were real.”

“Not good for business, as my mom says. Takes too much extra time in the makeup trailer. Honestly, I think they only decided to give them to my character because I look like such a child. I’m not believable as a cop without some kind of hint of danger.

Not sure the floral motifs are great for that, but they don’t pay me to have opinions about such things.

One less item for me to have to make a decision about. ”

I lifted up one naked arm and began kissing along the pristine skin, enjoying the few freckles scattered here and there that were only visible this close up.

I didn’t want to talk about the film anymore. I didn’t want Finn Heller the actor in bed with me. I wanted Finn Heller the sweet, semi-insecure man who picked the zucchini out of his stir-fry to eat first and who made a little mmm sound every time he took a sip of cold water.

“Lie back and let me make the decisions for a while,” I said. His eyes were molten, a rich, dark green that said so many things without saying a word. As Finn’s body relaxed into the bed, I continued exploring his skin with my mouth and hands.

With every pass of my lips and fingertips, his dick got harder and his breathing shallower.

By the time I slicked up a couple of fingers and began toying with his ass, he was making sounds that went straight to my cock.

He was tight and hot, just like the other night when I’d been inside him, but something about this time was different.

We knew where we stood. There were feelings involved. Even if this didn’t turn into anything other than a temporary fling, it was more than a one-night stand. More than a meaningless hookup with a stranger.

“Tell me what you like.” My voice sounded rough with need. I needed to be inside him, but I also needed to make it good for him.

“I like…” He swallowed. “I like it when you hold me down. I like it when…” He closed his eyes as one of my fingers brushed against just the right spot inside him. “Oh god. Dec. Don’t make me use my brain right now. Just fuck me. Hard.”

I flipped him onto his stomach and yanked his hips up, knocking his legs apart with one of my own. One of my hands pressed between his shoulder blades to tell him to keep his face down before I grabbed both of his wrists and placed his hands on the rails of my headboard. “Hold.”

His long fingers gripped the slats with white knuckles as his entire body shuddered beneath me. I brushed my hard dick through the furrow between his cheeks and enjoyed every bit of the resulting groan out of him.

“I want to hear you,” I murmured behind his ear. “I want to hear you beg and scream for me. I want to hear how much you like having your hole stretched out on my cock. Do you understand?”

He shuddered again and nodded. “Yes,” was all he said.

“And you will tell me to stop if anything hurts or is uncomfortable.”

“Yes.”

I leaned up and pressed a long kiss to the side of his head, inhaling the now familiar scent of his shampoo. “Good boy.”

The noise that came out of Finn’s throat made my dick jump against his ass. He liked the praise. Noted .

I pressed my dick against his ass again and again and enjoyed Finn’s attempts to push back against it despite his limited range of motion.

“Not yet,” I murmured against his back as I kissed down his spine. I moved my fingers back to his hole and played with his rim, running my thumb in circles but never pressing inside. It made him crazy with need. His breathing shallowed even more, and his whimpers came closer together.

“Dec. Declan. Dec,” he chanted. “Please. Now. Need. Please.”

His voice was slurred against the bedsheet where his head was turned to the side. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes lay closed. The sooty eyelashes I loved so much fluttered against freckled cheeks.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I told him for the millionth time before finally pressing my thumb inside him.

He arched and keened. I quickly replaced my thumb with two long fingers so I could find and rub his gland. With my other hand, I reached around to stroke his cock and noticed it was already leaking like crazy.

“I’m going to come,” he warned.

“No you’re not,” I said as sternly as I could. I grasped the base of his cock and squeezed. “Stop now.”

“Oh god. Oh. Oh goddd.”

Finn was writhing beneath me, prickly and restless from being edged, when I finally suited up and pushed inside him with my dick.

“ Fuck ,” I groaned. The feeling was indescribable. I lay over his damp, warm back and wrapped both arms around his front. My lips found the side of his neck, and I sucked on a spot while I tried not to come right away. “You feel… Baby, fuck. I’ve never… god. I can’t…”